Alternate Ending, or: I have chosen a dark path
by BlueAzalea
Summary: A different take on the end of "Party Guessed." Peter doesn't rise, leaving Lydia alone in the Hale house with Derek. AU stuff happens from there. This story is a one-shot and is complete.


Alternate Ending, or: I have chosen a dark path, and I found you there.

It hadn't worked. She'd done everything he told her to - poisoned her friends and made them see terrible truths, poisoned Derek and brought him to this burned wreck of a house (and oh how Isaac had snapped and growled at her, and strange how Derek didn't seem to weigh a thing but just floated over the dead leaves and mud on the way to right here and right now).

She'd given him Derek's hand. She'd given him the moonlight. And...nothing.

Derek was still asleep. "You don't know what you're doing," he'd said. And he'd been right. Now she was alone in this place, again. The dark night buzzed with the sound of cicadas. The Hale house smelled like dust and blood. Peter's body hardly smelled like anything at all. She closed her eyes and inhaled. There it was: decay. Just a hint.

He was really dead. She waited for him to appear, with his burns or without them, young or not as young, but there was only the cicadas and the sound of her breathing and Derek's breathing.

Derek. She recognized him outside of Scott's house the other day. His sister Laura had been her babysitter when she was young. She should have remembered the Hale house when Peter had offered up the vision of it whole and glorious, but she hadn't. She could barely summon up the image of Laura's face, but she would have known Derek anywhere. She had harbored a towering crush on him. When she was ten and he was seventeen, he had dropped off Laura at her house sometimes and had even talked to her once.

"Oh my god," she had whispered the first time she'd seen him though the living room window, hoping that the burning in her cheeks didn't mean she was blushing. Laura had given her a knowing smile when she'd caught Lydia still staring but hadn't said a word about it. A ten year old in love with a high school junior. Silly.

She looked at him now, quiet and caught up in the deep slumber of the wolfsbane. He was still beautiful. He was more beautiful.

And so was she. Wasn't she?

Suddenly, she didn't want to be alone anymore. For weeks she had known people were avoiding her at school, laughing at her behind her back. It had been such a strange sensation.

"Busy after school?" Fake Peter had asked her. "Always," she had responded. A lie. Allison was the only friend she had left.

And Allison had been hiding things from her all along. To protect her, probably. From werewolves like Peter Hale. Except, of course, that it was too late.

If only there was a light in here. It was so dark, and the moon was now hidden behind a flock of clouds, causing the beam of light reflecting off of the mirrors she had placed just so yesterday to fade away. "One light," she whispered.

And then there was one.

Floating in front of her, like a firefly. Unthinking, she reached out to touch it. It was cool and malleable. She closed her hand around it, and the light peeked out from between her fingers. She opened her hand and the light hovered above her palm. "Go away," she told it.

And it did. Shivering, Lydia pulled her jacked closed and scooted closer to Derek. She leaned over him, letting her hair touch his temple. "Wake up," she said.

And he did. His eyes - green, glinting - opened so quickly that she jerked back in surprise.

"Lydia?" He breathed. There it was, her name again on his lips. She thought for just a moment about asking him to say it again.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, looking away. She was flooded with a sickening wave of shame for what she had done. But Peter had promised not to kill anyone if she did what he asked. And yes, there had been some pleasure in making her "friends" pay for keeping her in the dark all this time. But she would never let Peter kill them. Or worse, use her to kill them.

Derek sat up slowly, propped up on his elbows. He looked dazed. Strange how the wolfsbane had such different properties when inhaled, as opposed to ingested. Although not unusual for a herbaceous plant.

"Are you okay?" She asked, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He flinched when her fingers made contact, and she pulled her hand away, stung.

"I'm okay," he muttered. Then, louder, "What the hell were you thinking?" She could tell he was still too weak to muster up the anger she knew would come.

Lydia pushed her hair behind her ear. "He told me that everyone would die if I didn't do what he said. Peter told me, I mean." She could hear that she sounded like a sad little girl and she hated it. "So I did it."

Derek's eyes widened and he jerked around to peer into the hole where Peter's body lay. Seeing it still there, he sighed in relief. "Thank Christ." He turned back to her. "He talked to you?"

"Yes." Lydia pulled the hem of her blue dress down, but she couldn't make the little frock big enough to cover her legs. Derek's eyes drifted down to the creamy skin of her thighs, then, catching himself, he looked away quickly.

"Since I woke up in the hospital, after he bit me." A great wall of tears seemed to be building behind her eyes, and she could feel the hot stream of them down her face. She didn't try to wipe them away. "He called me his 'plan B'."

Derek sat up. He seemed stiff but was recovering quickly.

Werewolf, she thought.

"Did he tell you why?" Those green eyes bored into her and Lydia nodded, refusing to look away.

"He said I was immune. That I wouldn't turn from the bite and wouldn't die from it either." Lydia was used to be being special, so it hadn't really surprised her that it was impossible to make her a werewolf. And, although she didn't know why that was true, the light appearing out of thin air when she called it was making her suspect what the reason might be.

"Impossible," Derek snapped, standing up at last. "No one is immune." He sounded so sure, but his eyes were moving over her again, as if looking for some mark or symbol hidden somewhere on her body that would explain everything.

Lydia shrugged. "I am. You know that, since it's been two full moons and I didn't turn into a werewolf. And obviously I'm alive, so..."

She gazed up at him. She liked the way he looked with the charred remains of his house surrounding him. He looked like a survivor. A champion.

Derek shook his head, taking a few steps away from her. "This makes no sense. You should be dead."

He turned away, and Lydia suddenly felt strangely cold. She got to her feet clumsily and was glad he wasn't looking when she did it.

"I think I'm a witch."

He did turn around and look at her then. He met her eyes and was silent for a few long moments. Then he laughed - a short, angry bark of laughter. "A witch? Come on. There's no such thing as witches."

"Oh yeah? The werewolf is telling me there's no such thing as witches?" Lydia was getting a little angry now too. She was tired of people dismissing her, ignoring her, leaving her out of everything. She glared at Derek.

"Light!" she shouted, and another golden ball appeared between them, larger and brighter than the one she had conjured before.

She expected Derek to run, to wheel around and launch himself through a rotten door or window. To leave her alone. But he didn't.

Instead, he looked at the glowing ball hovering before him for a moment, then looked at her. He didn't look scared, or horrified, or sickened. He looked...she couldn't quite describe the look. It was the kind of expression she might expect to see on the face of someone seeing a unicorn for the first time. Stunned, but also enchanted. Yes, that was it. He looked enchanted.

It must be the wolfsbane.

"You're her," Derek said, his voice strained. "You're the white witch."

"Uh..." Vision of Glinda from the Wizard of Oz popped in her mind. "The what?"

Derek moved closer to her now, careful to give the light a respectful distance. Shadows played across his face, making him look like something out of a dream. Lydia felt something prickling on the back of her neck. A sense of recognition. But that was strange because she knew who he was. He was Derek. But she had the strangest sense of suddenly being caught up in a dance or a play that she hadn't studied but knew by heart.

"We waited for you." Derek was close now. Close enough that she could feel the heat of him. Did werewolves run hot? It was like standing in front of a wood fire oven. "For generations. But you didn't come."

Deja vu. It was as though she knew he was going to say that. And when she opened her mouth, the words came out of their own accord: "The time wasn't right. Many things must align. But I am here now. And we will stop them, together."

Derek's face crumbled under the weight of sudden sorrow. "But they're all gone except for me. I'm so sorry, it was my fault. It was my fault they died."

Lydia reached out and pressed her palm against his cheek. He turned his face into her hand and kissed it. She could feel his tears. At some point, hers had dried up. She knew he was talking about his family. Peter had showed her this. And "them"...well, she didn't know exactly who she was talking about, but she could see a face in her mind's eye. A cruel man's face with dark eyes and a vicious scar that warped one cheek.

And Derek...her brave warrior, fighting alone. She had known, on some level, the very first time she'd seen him. "When I was little, I had nightmares," she said softly. He put his hands on her waist and the heat emanating from him seeped into her skin where they were connected. "I told Laura about them, and she told you. One day, when you dropped her off at my house to watch me, you came up to the front door with her. When I opened the door and saw you, my heart turned over. And you said, 'there's no such thing as monsters, Miss Martin.'" She stepped even closer to him. All she could see was him. "And do you know...I never had another nightmare after that. Not until Peter came and tried to manipulate my power."

He lifted one hand to brush away a lock of her hair. "But you didn't bring him back. He's still in the ground. Your presence here should have sealed the spell and raised him."

The hand slipped into her hair. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch. "Because at the last moment, I knew what he planned to do. He was going to kill you in revenge. I couldn't let that happen. You and Scott are the only ones who can win this for us."

"You saved me." She opened her eyes. His lips were so close to hers that when he spoke, she could feel his breath.

"You're worth saving," she told him. And then he kissed her.

The memory of a thousand lifetimes rose up and then fell away, giving her glimpses of this man, the warrior she had imbued with the spirit of the wolf so long ago, when the ice still covered their homeland and terrible creatures plagued the woods at night. She had made him a champion and had fought at his side, using the power gifted to her to bend nature itself to her will. But always for the sake of good. The white witch walks the dark path, but she is never without the light. And he is her light.

His kissed deepened, turned hungry, and she rose up of her tiptoes to push back. She wanted him to know that she wanted him still, that he hadn't been the only one waiting, and pining, as the years wore on since they last were together.

He became impatient quickly, pulling her jacket down and tossing it aside. She tugged at the hem of his shirt and he yanked it off, sending it the same direction as her jacket. She pulled him down to kiss him again and again, until she was dizzy and his eyes were blazing red with desire. She smiled to see that color. "Alpha," she whispered.

With a growl, he picked her up and pushed her against a charred wall, his hips pressing against her and his hands everywhere, trying to navigate the fabric and reach as much of her skin as possible. His rough fingers found a nipple and she gasped. Her floating ball of light dimmed but didn't die out and she almost giggled - it seemed her magic was capable of creating mood lighting.

Her sense of humor vanished when he set her down and stepped away from her. "Lydia," he managed, his breathing heavy. She noticed his hands were shaking and she felt dizzy. "Not here. Not in this place, after everything. This is ruin and death. I want..." He looked at her with so much desire flickering in his gaze that she was surprised her dress didn't burst into flames. "I want to take you home." He chucked without humor. "But I don't have one."

She padded forward on her bare feet and took his hand. She knew she must look a mess, and she reveled in it. Times past, she would run through the woods in nothing but a shift on the nights of the full moon. Sometimes Derek would catch her. Sometimes she would catch him. Either way, she looked anything but presentable on those nights. "Then come to my home. Come to my bed, Derek."

Then he smiled at her, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was gone too soon, as his eyes momentarily unfocused and his head cocked as though he were listening for something.

She knew that look well, and could guess the source. "Scott," she said. No question.

He nodded and smiled again, a little less bright but no less beautiful. "Soon, Lydia. After I save this kid's ass. I'll meet you at your place."

She leaned up and kissed him, pouring all of her longing and - yes - her love for him into it, and she could feel him wavering in his resolve to go to his Beta. She tore away and pressed her forehead to his. "Go," she whispered. "I'll be waiting for you."

He kissed her again, quickly, and was gone. She stared after him for a few long moments, feeling as though she were aboard a ship during a storm and the deck was rocking under her feet. A feeling of wonderful, terrible resolve, filled her. She wasn't alone anymore. And she knew who she was, who Derek was, and what was coming.

She looked at her glowing ball of light. "Go away," she murmurs, and it does.

She didn't need to see what was in front of her. She has walked this road before.


End file.
